Channel
34 TV did a 2 part series in their
6pm news cast, about breweries along Rt. 86.They call it NYS Beer Trail, and they featured Beer Tree and Upstate.
Mike Tanzini did a great job on these.

Brew Beats is another TV series, very well produced by WSKG.Farmhouse, Hopshire, Water St., etc.
were featured, and there are more to come.There’s always a local band included in the show, so it’s a pairing of
music and brewer interviews.

Pumpkin
Throwdown was held October 29th,
at Farmhouse Brewery.Pumpkin Monkey Bread
won, and it was really good, paired well with Marty’s great brews.

The NY
Craft Brewers Festival will be Dec. 2nd, 4 to 8pm, in
Syracuse at the Landmark Theater.Over
50 Breweries, and lots of food included for $45, on-line, $20 Designated
Driver.This is put on by the NY
State Brewers Association, should be a lot of brewers there.Apparently, there was one June 10th,
too.Your President will be helping
Marty, Farmhouse Brewing.

We’re doing our annual Beer Tour,
Jan. 13th.Coachmaster (30 passenger) costs $35/ea., depending
upon how full it is.We voted to give a
discount to BIER members, using the treasury excess, amount to be determined
nearer to tour time.We went North last
year, how about West this time?If you
want to reserve your spot, get me $30/ea. for members, $35/ea. for non-members,
or PayPal it to Dave King (2).Checks
will work, too.

Dave King (2) did 4 brewing water composition
analyses with his LaMotte kit, and new reagents.We discussed the findings.2 more samples were done after the meeting,
and will be discused at our Dec. meeting, they’re
included here.

Don
Powell showed us that the fermentation process proceeds like radioactive
decay.If you plot the number of bubble
per minute during the fermentation of your batch you will get a straight line
if you plot it on semi-log graph paper.For example: if from day 2 to day 3 the bubbles/min decrease from 100 to
50, then the next day they will be 25, then the following day 12.5 and so
forth.The example and a blank
sheet of semi-log graph paper is attached.

Kevin
Winters, Owner of Doc’s Homebrew is now handling malts
from The Swaen, a malt house in the Netherlands.He and Herb had samples for us.

Kevin and Herb passed small vials of
each malt to try.The handouts with descriptions
and comparisons to other malts
are attached here.More details on
specific malts are available on-line.We distributed the 1 lb. packs and divided up
the bag of Ale malt.Thanks for the
container loan, Tom.We need to bring
them back for him.Someone took the bag
of Pilsen home, to bring back at the Dec.
meeting.If you want some, bring a
container.

They also left a stack of ACCUmash
water adjustment packs.These are salts
to be added to RO or distilled water, for a 5 gal. batch, tailored to a range
of OG and general beer style, see the pack.They are being discontinued, so don’t get too excited.I have 6 packs left, which I’ll bring to the Dec.
meeting.

We
discussed our plan to do a Christmas dinner at Galaxy, Dec. 8th, early,
6:30pm, stay tuned for details.

Don
and Jeff Stewarded, Bob brought popcorn, Binghamton
Brewing provided the usual great side room, a sheet of pizza and rinse
water, thanks all!I hope you all bought
a beer or 2 from our generous hosts, Binghamton
Brewing.

Jim
Burt – Southern Boreal IPA
1.2, light IPA, like the one
Jim made for Mom’s House last Spring, with Conan yeast, and all late addition
and dry hops, 6.7% ABV. Nice, dry, super hop flavor and aroma.Amazing.

Tom – Heady
Topper clone, 6 gal., light on malt flavor, big on the hops, yet another good NE IPA,
with 8 and 4 day dry hopping.So many
hops!

Dave Russell – Chocolate Cherry Stout, milk stout, with cherry puree in
the primary and cocao nibs in the secondary, for
great flavors and aromas.Dry, not sweet,
even with the cherry and lactose.Very
well done, Dave!

Fun night, many great brews (19 attendees, & 14 beers). Next month
is our Christmas Dinner, Dec 13th,
at Galaxy, 6:30 should be a
good time to meet. Galaxy has
a great full menu, and fine Beers, just right for our once a year
tradition.